Fern

“ Then some great forest tree full of sweet-scented blossoms, and alive with birds and insects, would arrest our attention; or down in some moist hollow, where a tiny stream trickled from the rocks, there would be enormous tree-ferns springing up twelve or fifteen feet above us, and spreading their beautiful fronds like so much glorious green lace against the sky. A fern is always a beautiful object, but these tree-ferns were more than beautiful—they were grand. ”

“ For in the glen cool waters crisp over cold stones and the breeze sighs up stream and fans you as you sit on the brink of the pool and lean your head against the ledge from whose crannies drip the fairy fronds of the rock fern.
These are but little fellows of our [Pg 119] fern world, and the magic which distills from their fern seed is no doubt less potent than that from greater ferns, but added to the witch-hazel glamour it makes brook magic which will initiate you into many mysteries of the pasture world if you are but patient. ”

“ And now every day for many weeks will appear fresh batches of young ferns. Someone has said that there is nothing more aggressively new-born than a young fern, and this thought will recur
Fiddleheads constantly as you chance upon the little wrinkled crozier-like fronds, whether they are bundled up in wrappings of soft wool or protected by a garment of overlapping scales, or whether, like many of the later arrivals, they come into the world as naked and puny as a human baby. ”

“ No man ever saw growing such trees as waved their giant branches over the earth, for then Nature made things on a grander scale than she does now. The little fern, however, was wild and simple, and lived in its home unnoticed and uncared for by any of the great creatures or the mighty trees. Still it grew on modestly in its own sweet way, spreading its fronds and becoming more beautiful every day. ”

“ The river from the waterfall, which I have before spoken of, ran within fifty yards of our feet in a deep ravine, the sides of which were more thickly covered with fern-trees than I ever saw elsewhere. I think that the glowing terms in which many speak of the ferns are not borne out by their general appearance; it is only when seen from above that they are such surpassingly beautiful objects; seen from below I do not think they are equal in beauty to the generality of palms. ”

“ Never dig up more on one day than you can plant during the next, and above all remember that if a fern is worth tramping the countryside for, it is worth careful planting, and that the moral remarks made about the care in setting out of roses [Pg 201] apply with double force to the handling of delicate wild flowers and ferns.
Good luck to your knoll, Mary Penrose, and to your fern fence, if that fancy pleases you. May the magic of fern seed fill your eyes and let you see visions, the goodly things of heart's desire, when, all being accomplished, you pause and look at the work of your hands. ”

“ Subsequently, within the dim recesses of a cave, the mouth of which opened upon the upper lake and could only be approached by a boat, we discovered several splendid specimens, one of which, with a creeping rhizome, some three feet long, contained no fewer than thirty perfect fronds. Nothing that I have ever seen in my varied experience of fern-life equaled the delicacy and pellucidness of these fronds, nurtured in the darkness and the mist. The veins were so prominent, and the green portion so like a membranous wing around the veins, that it resembled more a beautiful sea-weed than a fern. ”

“ This may not be respectful treatment, but it is not martyrdom; the fern is a generous plant, a thing of wiry root-stock and prehistoric tenacity; it has not forgotten that tree ferns are among its ancestors; when it is discouraged, it rests and grows again. But imagine the [Pg 191] feelings of a mat of exquisite maidenhair rent from a shady slope with moss and partridge vine at its feet, and quivering elusive woodland shade above, on finding itself unceremoniously crowded into a bed, between cannas or red geraniums! ”

“ Fern leaves are in the highest order of cryptogams. Like those of flowering plants they are reinforced by woody fibres running through their stems, keeping them erect while permitting graceful curves. Their exquisite symmetry of form, their frequent finely cut borders, and their rich shades of green combine to make them objects of rare beauty; while their unique vernation and method of fruiting along with their wonderful mystery of reproduction invest them with marked scientific interest affording stimulus and culture to the thoughtful mind. ”

“ This fern grows in the shape that I see, because its ancestors have been slowly moulded into such a form by the whole group of circumstances directly or indirectly affecting them in all their past life; and the germ of the complex form thus produced was impressed by the parent plant upon the spore from which this individual fern took its birth. Over yonder I see a great dock-leaf; it grows tall and rank above all other plants, and is able to spread itself boldly to the light on every side. ”

“ The ferns and the witch-hazel are themselves mysterious and promoters of mystery, and it is hard to tell which leads in waywardness and subornation of sorcery. The ferns are the lingering representatives of an elder world,—a world that was old before the first pine dropped its cones or the leaves of the first deciduous tree fell on the first greensward. Their ways are not the ways of modern plant life.
Take the cinnamon fern, for instance, one of the commonest of our woods. It grows up each spring like a tender and succulent herb, to wither and die down in the fall as the grass does. ”

“ They will probably give off an evil smell, and as probably a blistering milk. Look on at the next stem. Up it, and down again, a climbing fern which is often seen in hothouses has tangled its finely-cut fronds. Up the next, a quite different fern is crawling, by pressing tightly to the rough bark its creeping root-stalks, furred like a hare’s leg. ”

“ It is a handsome fern and very satisfactory to the novice in fern hunting, because, taking fertile and sterile fronds together, it cannot be confused with any other species.
Crossing the tiny stream, a path dim with the shade of low, dense evergreens and soft and elastic underfoot from their fallen leaves, leads through the woods. ”

“ FERN.—Among Celtic and Germanic nations the Fern was formerly considered a sacred and auspicious plant. Its luck-bringing power was not confined to one species, but belonged to the tribe in general, dwelling, however, in the fullest perfection in the seed, the possessor of which could wish what he would, and the Devil would be obliged to bring it to him. In Swabia, they say that Fern-seed brought by the Devil between eleven and twelve on Christmas night enables a man to do as much work as twenty or thirty ordinary men. ”

“ A fern is a flowerless plant growing from a rootstock (a) , with leaves or fronds usually raised on a stalk, rolled up (b) in the bud, [1] and bearing on their lower surfaces (c) the spores, by means of which the plant reproduces.
A rootstock is an underground, rooting stem. Ferns are propagated by the growth and budding of the rootstock as well as by the ordinary method of reproduction. ”

“ Now, the student of fern species is quite inclined to think of these “freaks,” as he calls them, much as others would if they were animal. The botanist may admire the form, hue and perfume of the gardener’s rose, but this is not the rose he cares to study. In the early numbers of The Fern Bulletin, upward of sixty American ferns have been put on 120 record as bearing forked or tasselled fronds, and so far as the editor is aware, not one of these has been taken into cultivation and only a very few have been given names. ”

“ The charm of her fern-book is as irresistible and pervading as is the charm of nature itself. This gifted and enthusiastic naturalist knows the ferns literally 'like a book,' and her book makes the first lesson of the novice in the lore of fern-life an easy and a delightful task."--New York Mail and Express.
"This is a notably thorough little volume. The text is not voluminous, and even with its many full-page illustrations the book is small; but brevity, as we are glad to see so many writers on nature learning, is the first of virtues in this field.... ”

“ Happily the Lady Fern is common in many parts of the United Kingdom. Often it is to be found growing surprisingly near to towns, though its pretty green foliage makes a strong appeal to the eye of those vandals who go about uprooting every fern which they see. It is of easy culture in the garden. ”

“ Let no one imagine that the study of ferns will be an easy one. Patient application and careful observation are essential to success, yet he who becomes once interested in the work will find a subject that deepens in interest with every step, and even becomes enchanting as he seeks to determine the mysterious processes of fern development and the marvels of fern structure. ”

“ Though some of the ferns I have mentioned may have superior claims in the eyes of botanists and collectors of rare species, it must be acknowledged that there is not one more universally popular than the graceful Athyrium filix fœmina, or lady fern. Indeed, not a few botanists have pronounced it to be the loveliest of all British ferns, possessing as well the great charm of commonness. ”

“ On an ordinary walk of an hour or two through the fields and woods, the would-be fern student can familiarize himself with anywhere from ten to fifteen of the ferns described in this book. During a summer holiday in an average locality he should learn to know by sight and by name from twenty-five to thirty ferns, while in a really good neighborhood the enthusiast who is willing to scour the surrounding country from the tops of the highest mountains to the depths of the wildest ravines may hope to extend his list into the forties. ”

“ No true fern lover in either case would knowingly destroy one of Nature’s own novelties in the way I described by denuding it repeatedly of its fronds for herbarium purposes in situ, when by removing and cultivating it he could also, in either case, not only gratify his own special taste more fully, but could afford much gratification to a host of other fern lovers of either class. That “students of ferns know that many fern forms are due to varying conditions of soil, light, moisture, etc., and are inclined to pay very little attention to them” I accept at once, ranking myself with them ”

“ Most spectacular of the many ferns is the sword fern, often exceeding four feet in height. Others are the omnipresent brake, the fragrant licorice fern, and the delicate maidenhair and lady ferns, found under overhanging ledges where the earth is always cool and damp. ”

“ This fern, so rare with us, is a common plant in Europe, its fronds attaining at times a length of two or three feet. In Ireland and the Channel Islands it is especially abundant. In Devonshire, England, it is described as growing "on the tops and at the sides of walls; hanging from old ruins... dropping down its long, green fronds into the cool and limpid water of roadside wells hewn out of the rock; often exposed to the full blaze of the sun, but always in such cases dwindled down to a tiny size" ("The Fern Paradise") . ”

“ The bright evergreen tint, the elegant form, and lightly waving attitudes of this fern render it very attractive, and when growing against the sides of the sea-washed rock, or any moist place in any abundance, no fern exceeds it in beauty. It has not been found in Scotland, and in but few districts in the south of England; in the ravines and mountain gorges throughout the west of Ireland, however, the collector is seldom permitted to go unrewarded for his diligent search. ”

“ But in later summer, judging by my own experience, the Lady Fern loses much of its delicacy. Many of its fronds become disfigured and present a rather blotched and coarse appearance.
This seems strange in view of the fact that the plant is called by Lowe, a well-known English writer, the "Queen of Ferns," and that it is one of the few ferns to which we find reference in literature. Scott pays it the compliment, rarely bestowed upon ferns, of mentioning it by name :
"Where the copse wood is the greenest. ”

“ Your sweet carol and the graceful waving of yonder tree, as the soft wind turns up its silver-lined leaves in the sunlight, fill my heart with a quiet gladness.
Whom have we here? with ragged skirt, bare mud-begrimm’d feet and ankles, tattered shawl, and tangled masses of hair fluttering round a face ploughed deep with time and trouble. See—she stoops, and, stretching her skeleton fingers towards the gutter, grasps some refuse rags and paper, and thrusts them greedily into the dirty sack she bears upon her shoulders. Good heavens! that dirty mass of rags a woman? ”

“ Though few of our fern-students will have an opportunity to follow the Prickly Shield Fern through all the forms it assumes in different parts of the world, yet undoubtedly many of them will have the pleasure of seeing in one of its lonely and lovely haunts our own variety, Braun's Holly Fern. ”

“ This is the form of the species that abounds in our woods. Perhaps no one plant does more for their beauty than this stately fern, whose rich-green, outward-curving fronds spring in circles from fallen trees and decaying stumps as well as from the ground.
The plant varies greatly in height, breadth, and
PLATE XXVIII
BOOTT'S SHIELD FERN
a Tip of fertile pinna
way of holding itself. ”

“ Of course the shapes of plants are mostly due to their normal and usual circumstances, and are comparatively little influenced by the accidental surroundings of individuals; and so, when a fern of such a sort happens to grow like this one on the open, it still retains the form impressed upon it by the life of its ancestors. Now, it is the striking combination of symmetry and variety in the fern, together with vivid green colouring, which makes us admire it so much. ”